Looting Africa: The Economics of Exploitation

Patrick Bond

Apr 2013 · Zed Books Ltd.

About this ebook

Despite the rhetoric, the people of Sub-Saharan Africa are become poorer. From Tony Blair's Africa Commission and the Make Poverty History campaign to the Hong Kong WTO meeting, Africa's gains have been mainly limited to public relations. The central problems remain exploitative debt and financial relationships with the North, phantom aid, unfair trade, distorted investment and the continent's brain/skills drain. Moreover, capitalism in most African countries has witnessed the emergence of excessively powerful ruling elites with incomes derived from financial-parasitical accumulation. Without overstressing the 'mistakes' of such elites, this book contextualises Africa's wealth outflow within a stagnant but volatile world economy.

About the author

Patrick Bond, a political economist, is research professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal School of Development Studies in Durban where he directs the Centre for Civil Society (http://www.ukzn.ac.za/ccs). He is also visiting professor at York University Department of Political Science in Toronto and Gyeongsang National University Institute of Social Sciences in South Korea. He previously taught at the University of the Witwatersrand Graduate School of Public and Development Management, Yokohama National University Department of Economics and the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health.